In a daily life environment, there are an enormous number of images everywhere you look around. The majority of these images are intended to transfer specific messages to viewers. For example, with respect to a method of performing advertisement using an image, although an advertisement has been provided via an outdoor billboard to which an output very-large image has been attached in its early stage, this method is recently being changed to a method of transferring a digitized image or video to the public present in a specific time span and in a specific space via a large-sized monitor. However, most current methods of transferring a message via an image still remain in a unilateral form in which a message is transferred from an image from a user.
In this respect, there is a need for the development of technology for enabling a provider who provides a specific image or video, such as an advertisement, to automatically determine whether a user has observed the corresponding image or video and then provide appropriate additional information to the user accordingly.
Meanwhile, Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2013-0008109 (published on Jan. 22, 2013) relates to “a mobile terminal, a news provision apparatus, and a location-based news provision method,” and discloses a method of receiving location information from a mobile terminal and transmitting related news information based on the received location information to the corresponding terminal. However, the method requires that location information is accurately received from the terminal first, and thus the terminal itself should acquire location information. Accordingly, the method has a limitation in that news information cannot be provided to a terminal that cannot acquire location information because the terminal has no location information acquisition means or a terminal that does not transmit location information.